Crystal's Account
by LizaVera
Summary: This is the story of Hangman's Curse told through Crystal Sparks. Simple enough.
1. Chapter 1

We were never bad kids. We didn't bother anyone, or cause trouble for the teachers. Mostly we minded our own business, too caught up with our own lives to pay attention to the high school drama. But drama came to us. It found us one way or another. It always did.

It was the beginning of the football season when our problems started. Our high school football team had a winning record like no other. At the end of the season, our team was always in the finals, and we usually won. The football guys were the gods of the school. Every girl wanted to date them, the teachers favored them, and the entire school adored them. Well, almost the entire school.

A long time ago, someone must have made an unofficial rule about the pecking order of the school system. The jocks were on top, along with the cheerleaders, then the normal kids who didn't play a sport but weren't weird either, then the nerds, then us.

We were just normal kids. We did our best in school, we minded our own business, but for some reason we were dubbed different than everyone else. Ian Snyder was our leader. He was also my best friend.

We all looked up to Ian. He wasn't a figure of strength, but he possessed a certain confidence that everyone else in our group lacked. Tall, thin, with jet black hair and chilling black eyes, he carried himself with the attitude that said, 'the whole world can drop dead, see if I care'. That was what we liked about Ian. He was himself, and no one was going to keep him from being who he was through and through. I only wish I had Ian's attitude. Instead, I was a shy, quiet, timid, teenage girl. My name is Crystal Sparks.

In our sophomore year, our little group of friends started wearing black. I didn't think it was a big deal: I liked the color black. I think it complimented my ginger hair nicely. We wore black because Ian wore black, just like the cheerleaders pretty much all dressed alike and the football players all wore varsity jackets. It gave our group's members a certain sense of belonging. It wasn't like we were being exclusive either. If someone from another group wanted to hang out with us, we would let them. But no one ever wanted to hang out with us, thanks to the football guys.

Doug Anderson, Tod Kramer, Jimmy Boltz, Blake Hornsby. All of them were the same. Big, tall, bulky, and strong, they were the stars of the football team. They were heroes in everyone's eyes, except ours. They treated us like dirt; pushed us around because we were a little different than them. We weren't athletic, we weren't smart, and we sure as anything didn't have any school spirit. It didn't used to be this way, but when high school started, so did the prejudice. It started in our sophomore year...

"Hey Anderson! Check this kid out!" Jimmy Boltz yelled at his friend from across the hallway. "He's got a new tattoo!"

Ian shut his locker with a bang.

"Oooooh! Tough guy?" Doug Anderson said, coming over towards Ian. "Hey," he said, spotting the tattoo on Ian's shoulder. "An angel? That's kinda girly, dontcha think?"

"Yeah," Boltz said, shoving Ian a little bit. "What are you anyway, Snyder? A guy, or a chick?"

"I know!" Anderson said before Ian could respond. "He's neither! Fag!" He yelled, shoving Ian's books out of his hand and onto the floor. Then the bell rang, and they all scattered, leaving Ian alone to clean up the books.

~ * ~

There's so many things that go wrong in high school. Once the football guys learned that Ian and his "group" were the weak ones, the torture didn't stop. There were fights every day in the lunch room, name calling in the hallway, and threats in classes. And all we could do was watch Ian fight the battle alone. We knew that if we tried to step in, worse things would happen to us.

The girls' side of things wasn't much different. We didn't have physical fights, but the backstabbing and name calling was so much worse. The main culprit? Shawna Miller and her gang.

Shawna was Jim Boltz' girlfriend. She was the goddess of the school: perfect hair, perfect clothes, involved in theatre and sports, and quite friendly. Well, to normal people anyway. And I definitely wasn't normal.

~* ~

Shawna sat in history. I sat in front of her. It had been a particularly bad day. Ian had fought Doug at lunch. He lost, miserably. I had tried to step in and help Ian, but I had been thrown out of the way by Todd. I crashed into some other girl, knocking her over and landing on top of her. It looked bad. Really bad. You get the idea.

"Did you see Britt at lunch?" Shawna was saying. "She got thrown down! I hope she's ok..." she said in her sickening fake sympathetic voice.

"Did you see Crystal?" one of Shawna's friends questioned. "I think she enjoyed that little 'get together' waaaayyy too much!"

My face turned as red as my hair with anger. I couldn't believe it! I was sitting right there! Why would they say stuff like that with me sitting right there?

"You know what?" Shawna said quietly, although I could still hear her. "I think she's a lesbian."

Her friends gasped. "Do you really think so? She seems to like Ian so much though!"

"Well than she's bi! Same thing," Shawna said carelessly, although I could tell she cared very much. "Anyway, ask her. She wont deny it."

I turned around, ready to say something. Then, the bell rang and class begun. I shut my mouth and turned towards the front again.

"See, I told you she wouldn't deny it," Shawna whispered.

"Rumor!" one of the others giggled and began texting.

Embarrassed, I hung my head. I couldn't say anything in my defense. It was a no win situation. I spent the rest of the period thinking about the Iron Curtain of Communism and how I was to prepare myself for the bout of rumor spreading that was about to begin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: It's finally up!! I am so sorry that it took so long to put up. I have been writing this fanfiction all summer in a notebook but finding time to type it on the computer is rather difficult. Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews. You have motivated me to find time to work on this fanfic. Thanks so much! **

Chapter 2

By mid-year, the rumors had done their fair share of circulation: Ian and I were bi, dating each other between others of the same sex, we were both drug addicts, we were insane, mentally unstable. Things were getting out of hand. All our group could do was pray for a miracle or the end of the school year, whichever came first. We all longed for summer, but dreaded our junior year when the fights would get worse, the taunts would continue. And continue they did.

||**||

The football jocks gained a new player during our junior year. His name was Leonard Baynes. He fit in with them well. He was bulky, dimwitted, smart-mouthed, and rude. He was an incredible football player, automatically gaining the respect of the entire school, and the hatred from us.

"Who's this kid?" Leonard asked on of his teammates at lunch.

"That's Ian. He's weird." was the short explanation.

As Ian joined the lunch line, the football players followed him. Leonard tried to cut ahead of Ian, but Ian stood him up.

"Watch your place, man," Ian said, regaining his place in line.

"You watch it!" Leonard said roughly, shoving Ian to the back.

"Now boys," Boltz said in a fake girly teacher voice. "Play nice. We're all going to the same place, after all."

"No he's not!" Leonard countered back. "He's going to Hell!"

Ian raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "And _you're_ not?"

Leonard had snapped. The boy had an awful temper. Turning to face Ian, he landed a punch squarely to Ian's solar-plexus, knocking his breath out. The boys rolled out of the line, Leonard punching and kicking every part of Ian's skinny body he could get to.

A teacher from down the hall heard the commotion and came running, her high-heels making a clicking early warning sound against the tiles. Leonard quickly stood up and pretended to be helping Ian up off the ground.

"What is going on here?" The teacher asked.

Leonard grinned. "He just tripped. Here," He said, offering a hand to Ian.

Ian refuses his help. Instead, he stood up by himself, wincing in pain and gasping for breath. The teacher gave Leonard a strange look but said nothing about Ian's condition.

With Leonard's help, the jocks were able to terrorize more of our group that ever. The fights and treats got so bad, that people started leaving: dropping their black clothes and piercings and adopting a new look along with a new group. Norman joined the geeks along with a few others. They weren't much better off, but at least they had the satisfaction of not being associated with Ian Snyder.

||**||

I walked down the hallway with Ian. We had to stick together for security. There were only two of us left, making it easier for the jocks to terrorize us at ever corner.

Someone behind me yanked a strand of my long red hair. I turned around, only to be shoved away from Ian and into the lockers. My cellphone fell from my bag. I reached for it, but Todd Kramer stuck out his foot, snaping my cell in half.

"Leave her alone!" Ian said threateningly to Kramer.

"What are _you_ going to do?" Kramer laughed. He turned back to me. "Get out of here, freak."

"Leave her alone, Kramer!" Ian said again, stepping in and shoving Todd away from me. "When are you going to grow up?"

Kramer looked around for any of his fellow football players. Seeing none, he backed away. "Watch your back, Snyder," he said as he retreated down the hallway.

Ian put his hand on my shoulder. "Are you ok?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. I'm just sick of this. It's been almost three years of high school. You'd think they would grow up."

Ian picked up the pieces of my mangled phone. "You should report this to the office."

I laughed bitterly. "Yeah, right. They wont care. If they don't care bout the well-being of students, they're not going to care about my phone." I pocketed the pieces of my phone. "I just hope my mom doesn't find out. She'll care. Well, about the phone..."

||**||

"Bring it! Bring it!" Ian said quietly as the football players passed our lunch table.

"Don't encourage them!" I said, sketching an angel.

"I'm in a fighting mood today," he said, flexing his muscles. "And besides, what's the worst they can do to us?"

"Good attitude," I commented absently, adding on the wings. Someone snatched the paper out from underneath my pen. "Hey!" I said sharply, turning around.

"This is nice," Boltz commented sarcastically.

"Thanks," I said dryly, trying to grab the paper back. I failed. Curse my shortness.

"Hey Snyder! This going to be your next tattoo? It seems your type: it's even girlier that the last one!"

"Shut up," Ian said, suddenly sounding tired. He had heard these insults too many times for it to be worth fighting over.

Boltz slapped Ian in the face. "What did yous say to me?"

"I said shut up, you f-ing douche," Ian snarled, looking Boltz straight in the eyes.

"Say that to my face!" Boltz said. It seemed like that was the only comeback he knew.

"I believe I just did."

Then the beatings came. I just closed my eyes, willing for it to be over. But it was far from being over...


End file.
